Rent and Ruined

Rent and Ruined is an upcoming campaign that I’ll be running over Skype from around the beginning of next year. It draws strongly from Avery McDaldno’s Monsterhearts as well as surreal ‘urban fantasy’ like Pan’s Labyrinth, American Gods, War of the Oaks, and Changeling: the Lost. It also draws from my academic interests in the anthropology of spirit-possession and witchcraft and in psychogeography, surregionalism, and animism. 

It sheds the high-school setting of Monsterhearts, but is still about monstrosity as a metaphor for queerness (or the other way around?) and about dysfunctional and petty behaviour and toxic ways of relating to the world and your peers

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It is a game about being marginalised and set apart by who you are and how you’ve been hurt. 

It is a game about scars and damage, about the ruined and forgotten people who have been failed by those they should have been able to trust and who have fallen through the cracks of society’s neglect. 

It is a game about profound hurt and trauma and its aftermath, about the wild magic that grows in tears and gashes in hearts and minds and souls. 

It is a game about the desperate loneliness of wanting to connect but having been burned and hurt before and fearing that vulnerability. 

It is a game about hungers that can't be named and discomfort that scratches under the soul's skin with every glance in the mirror. 

It is a game about places and their souls, and how they change when all the people are gone and stranger things come to live there.

It is a game about decay, about the reclamation of the familiar - urban spaces, industry, humanity, normative identity - by and the reversion of the familiar to the strange and alien. 

It is a game about spirit-possession and transformation and the eerie and uncanny and how these phenomena tend to align with oppression and radical self-empowerment. 

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It is a feral game. 

It is an occult game.

It is a queer game.

Monk Archetype: Way of the Drunken Master + Rules for Drinking

(Credit goes to other takes on this archetype at middlefingerofvecna, basicredrpg, and the forums at enworld.org from which I have liberally borrowed and taken inspiration)

Monks of the Way of the Drunken Master find enlightenment and reunion with the larger universe not in long meditation or ancient mudras but at the bottom of a wine barrel. They learn to turn the effects of intoxication into both sword and shield, and become more dangerous the more sozzled and inebriated they become. 

Drink like a Demon

Starting when you choose this tradition at 3rd level, you have learned to catch your enemies off-guard with your drunken and staggering movements. Instead of adding your Wisdom modifier to your AC as per the Unarmoured Defense class feature, add instead the number of Drinks you have imbibed since your last rest. Additionally, hostile creatures have disadvantage on Opportunity Attacks against you. You also gain proficiency with improvised weapons and may count them as monk weapons.

Stance of the Drunken Ox

By 6th level, you become proficient with Constitution saving throws if you aren’t already. Whenever you make an attack, add the number of drinks you have imbibed since your last rest as a bonus to your damage. You may also spend 1 Ki to use Patient Defense as a reaction even if you have already taken one this round.

Slap of the Drunken Carp

At 11th level, when you make an attack you may use your bonus action to also cause a target within melee range to make an attack against a creature within range. The creature may not pull its punches and must attack the new target as if it were a dangerous enemy.

Tao of Drunken Bumbling

Beginning at 17th level your constant stumbling and falling always seems to cause your attackers to come to harm against your elbows, knees, head, or other things you are carrying. When a hostile creature misses you with a melee attack, you can make a melee attack against that creature as a free action. You may use this feature a number of times per round equal to the number of drinks you have imbibed since your last rest.

Drinking

The consumption of alcohol is measured in units called Drinks, each one of which represents a substantial portion of alcohol – half a bottle of wine, a brimming pint of strong beer, a couple of shots, etc. Each time you consume a Drink, you must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw (+2 per Drink already consumed) or gain a level of drunkenness. Drunkenness is measured in six levels.

A creature suffers the effect of its current level of drunkenness as well as all lower levels. For example, a creature suffering level 2 drunkenness has disadvantage on Dexterity-based ability checks and saves and advantage on Charisma-based ability checks.

Drunkenness drops by 1 level for every four hours that pass once a creature has stopped drinking.

Instinct, Bonds, and Inspiration

(I have problems with the way that D&D 5E handles Alignment, Personal Characteristics [Personality Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws], and the awarding of Inspiration for good roleplaying. The system presented below is intended to replace all of those features.)

Instinct

Instinct is a statement of your character’s mostly deeply-held belief, an impulse towards a certain course of action that reflects your core values. It concretely expresses the ideals that you aspire to and can guide you when you’re not sure what to do next. Instinct replaces the standard D&D 5E concept of alignment: morality is about the habits you cultivate and the actions that seem to flow most naturally from your world-view, not about a narrowly defined set of categories.

Example 1: Huan is a proud and haughty Noble whose uncle usurped the leadership of his family and sought to control him. He seeks power so that he will never have to be ruled again. Huan’s Instinct is: Defy an attempt by authority to exert power over you.

Example 2: Xi Leng is a curious and somewhat amoral Wizard who worked for years with a ruthless and power-hungry group of other magic-users. He is more interested in improving his knowledge and skills than in applying that knowledge and skill to help others. Xi Leng’s Instinct is: Better yourself or your skills through new knowledge.

At the end of every session, each player should remind the group of their character’s Instinct. If the group agrees that they fulfilled their Instinct then the character gains experience equal to a level-appropriate Deadly encounter. 

Bonds

Bonds are statements which bind a character to their fellow characters, to other people they know, or to larger groups or concepts. A character may have up to three Bonds at a time, which may be dropped or altered at the GM’s discretion (usually because of a development in the fiction).

At the end of every session, each player can nominate one Bond that they feel has been resolved (completely explored, proven or disproven, no longer relevant, or otherwise). If the player of the other character the Bond concerns (the GM in the instance of Bonds connected to concepts, NPCs/organisations, etc.) agrees that it has been resolved then the character gains experience equal to two level-appropriate Deadly encounters. 

Inspiration

The question of how to define good roleplaying is one of near-infinite difficulty, with the answer varying greatly depending upon the goals, themes, and premise of a given campaign. In the case of an open-ended sandbox campaign (like Wild Seas Under Heaven), the story and the action is entirely player-driven and therefore good roleplaying is that which produces bold and decisive attempts to interact with and change the surrounding world. 

Inspiration is intended as a mechanic to reward and encourage good roleplaying, but this requires that the players know the criteria. Players who know that there is a reliable source of Inspiration are more likely to use it rather than conserving it like a scarce and unpredictable resource. 

The GM should reward characters who engage with the setting through their goals, and who take decisive action towards achieving those goals. At the end of every session the GM should assess whether each character has:

• Established a new goal that is bold, decisive, or shows a real sense of purpose and agency. If the answer is yes, the GM should award Inspiration at the start of the next session. (Good judgement applies here: do not reward goals that are petty or meek, and do not continue to reward players who constantly set goals and make no meaningful effort to fulfil them).
• Taken a meaningful step towards achieving a goal – reaching a significant milestone, discovering vital information, or taking concrete and tangible steps. If the answer is yes, the GM should award Inspiration at the start of the next session. (Once again, good judgement applies. When in doubt, seek the opinions of your group as to whether or not real progress has been made towards achieving the goal in question).

Wild Seas Under Heaven, the Setting

Tianxia

An enormous island, centremost of all the lands under Heaven, which was shaped by the Dragon-Emperors in a time long since forgotten from clay dragged up from the seabed. Tianxia is a rugged land of extremes, with high mountains and plateaus giving way to sweeping valleys and rolling grasslands. Rivers abound, with their original courses often said to have been cut into the land by the tail of the dragon-god Yu the Great.

The time of the Dragon-Emperors is long gone, with the Great Emperor of Jade having ruled over Tianxia for ten thousand years.  The serpent-aspected humanoids that once inhabited the continent have all gone extinct, interbred, or retreated to the wilderness; Tianxia is now a land ruled and tamed by human beings.

Duitan

To the north of Tianxia lies Duitan, home to the turtle-aspected humanoids known as Biē. Duitan is an archipelago of tiny rocky islands separated by such narrow stretches of water that swimming is a common mode of transport. Reefs and shoals abound, and a number have been landscaped into suitable sites for occupation in preference to the bare and barren islands. The islands of Duitan are cold and stormy, and grow increasingly arctic in the northern reaches until large islands of largely-unsupported ice will form around a reef or tiny islands.

Duitan is the traditional heartland of the worship of They-Who-Awakened, a noble of unknown species and gender who dedicated their life to the understanding the causes and nature of suffering and found their answer and a solution while meditating for forty-nine years in an underwater grove of sacred kelp. The other patron god of the region is dark and fearsome Xuan Wu, who is master of the storm and sea and a tutelary-deity for warriors.

Rao

To the west of Tianxia lies Rao, home to the cat-aspected humanoids known as Rén. Rao is a large island with a number of mountain ranges running down its eastern side and clusters of islands continuing those lines into the sea. A fearsome reef called Tiger’s-Claw served as a natural barrier against occupation from Tianxia until they were able to launch fleets from colonies off the mainland and bypass it. Veldt-like grasslands and deciduous forests cover much of Rao and the surrounding islands, save for the north-western chain of bamboo-covered and wind-swept atolls often called Zōukow after the pirate fleet that anchors there.

Rao is a land haunted by spirits, with spectral ghost-tigers whose eyes burn with emerald fire continuing to fight a guerrilla war against Tianxian occupation. The region’s patron god is Bai Hu, the brash albino god who rules over metal and mining and is the tutelary-deity of lovers, horsemasters, and craftsmen.

Luhai

To the south of Tianxia lies Luhai, home to the bird-aspected humanoids known as Guàn. Luhai is an archipelago of crescent-like islands where steep slopes and cliffs plummet down from the central ridge of each island to meet the sea below. Tropical and humid in climate, the islands are covered in lush and verdant vegetation that forms a tangled jungle wherever there is enough flat ground to support more than one plant. Monsoons and torrential rains are common here, grounding for days the numerous birds that soar on the thermals that rise off the sea.

The patron god of Luhai is Zhu Que, the bright and far-seeing goddess who is keeper of the three-legged sunbird and ruler of the rain and spring warmth that allow crops to grow. She is a tutelary deity of artists and nobles, and is often linked to Kwan Yin, the Awakened-One whose worship and teachings of boundless compassion have spread most outside her origin in Luhai.

Shúhon

To the east of Tianxia lies Shúhon, home to the ape-aspected humanoids known as Mín. Shúhon is a chain of large mountainous islands covered in dense coniferous forests. Sinkholes and hidden inlets are common, and are used for refuge by the raiders and pirates respectively who still hold out and rebel against Tianxian occupation.

The patron god of Shúhon is Qing Long, the capricious and wily god of scholarship and high-stakes palace diplomacy who is the only Serpent-King to rule the elements above the waves. Shúhon is also the birthplace of the Monkey King, a notoriously disrespectful trickster-god whose martial feats are legendary.

Wild Seas Under Heaven

Pushed out to the farthest reaches of the Four Oceans where even the stars are strange, pirates and corsairs live outside the laws and customs of Imperial Tianxia. Outcasts and rebels by birth, crime, bureaucratic pettiness, or choice, they worship the little gods of old and keep to the  ways that have calmed tide and wind for generations. But the dangers that threaten them from both within and without have never been so dire.

Zhang witch-alchemists whisper poison in the emperor’s ear, and Tianxia is stirred again to conquest as he turns greedy eyes to Heaven. The foundations of the world shake as the Mandate of Heaven is withdrawn to punish his arrogance. The dragon-gods swim in the deep as sea and storm grow wild and rage at the uncaring sky. Chaos and revolution spread like wild-fire in the colonies as fanatics and anarchists seize the moment of Tianxia’s distraction to reclaim their homelands and ancient traditions.

And as their world shifts inexorably beneath their feet, and the reshaping of the world begins, all that is left for every soul under Heaven to decide is where and for what they will make their stand.  

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Wild Seas Under Heaven is a 5th Edition D&D campaign that I’ve been running since last year, drawing strongly from the sandbox and hexcrawl traditions. 

It is inspired by the legendary history of China presented in the Bamboo Annals, The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox by Barry Hughart, wuxia films that include Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and the anime films Princess Mononoke and Sword of the Stranger. 

The campaign is coming off a hiatus of nearly eight months which means that I’m taking this opportunity to make some tweaks to the system, adapt the campaign fully to a hexcrawl style, generate my own procedures for running such a game, and continue developing the background of the setting.

I’ll be sharing as much of that content as possible (without spoiling things for my players) here, along with play reports once sessions resume.

Monsterhearts, Session 3

The Setting: Drawing, a large forested country town in New South Wales around an hour from the coast, at Saint Valentine’s Academy, a Catholic high-school.

Our Cast (this session):

• Kafka – a striking Ghoul with hollow eyes who was killed in a car-accident a month ago, bare days into the school year, but woke up afterwards confused and hungry. (He pronouns) [Played by Kaj]
• Sabrina – a brooding Witch with calculating eyes whose sanctuary from the stupidity of her classmates (an old and abandoned bathroom) is full of occult paraphernalia. (She pronouns) [Played by Jacqui]
• Mika – a distant Infernal with calculating eyes chosen to receive power and influence by an unknown patron who asks only the smallest things in return. (They pronouns) [Played by Liv]
• Cera (Cerulean) – a bedraggled Selkie with far-away eyes who makes mixed-media art from beach junk and must investigate the nature of Mika’s patron if she wants her pelt back. (She pronouns) [Played by Andrei]
• Floris – a dainty Fae with mesmerizing eyes who dreams of the King in the Greenwood from whom she stole her glamour and power. (They pronouns) [Played by Liska]

What Happened:

Confused after the unexpected sexual encounter with Lauren and Mika and still ravenously hungry, Kafka let the other two fall asleep and began ransacking the house for food. Mika’s vegetarianism left the pickings slim although Kafka did locate the pile of bills and begin wondering how on earth Mika could afford such a lavish lifestyle. Revealing that they’d woken up, Mika – conflicted about this sexual encounter and its complication of their unresolved friendship with Kafka – tried to get Kafka to leave and instead received the unexpected news that their old friend was now one of the undead.

Finishing up an afternoon of tinkering with their art projects and cameras Cera headed out of Old Ernest’s hut and onto the beach, stripping off and donning a snorkel – made necessary by the theft of her gift of water-breathing along with her pelt – and swimming out to sea to commune with the ocean.

Noticing how hungry Kafka looked Mika invited them to go out for a bite to eat after asking the Dark Power to protect their house and the still-sleeping Lauren, for which it asked only that they make sure Kafka enjoyed a proper meal of raw and living flesh. Heading off to the forested side of town the two struggled through a tense conversation until Mika, noticing Kafka’s quickly-growing hunger, begged the Dark Power to provide a sleeping and helpless meal for their companion and was told the price would be that the meal would be still-living.

Floris, having taken the day off to sleep and recharge after a rough week, dreamed of walking through the thicker fringe of forest outside town and being followed by the sound of heartbeat-like drumming of hooves. Stepping off the path to hide from whatever creature was chasing them, they travelled from day to moonlit night and witnessed a monstrous and stag-like predator roaming the woods the silver-white eyes of which reflected a fey and inhuman version of their own face.

Heading out into the backwoods behind her house to get high on some psychedelics brought from Gail, Sabrina found herself lying on the forest floor trapped in a dream-like fugue for hours and eventually passed out after noticing a growing sense of watchful menace from the ancient and twisted trees surrounding her.

Arriving on the forested side of town Kafka and Mika spotted a juvenile deer grazing on an apple tree in a frontyard garden and Kafka gave into his hunger, leaping on the animal and ruthlessly beginning to rip chunks of flesh from the still-living creature. Caught up in the moment he unleashed his Darkest Self and decided to make Mika his next meal, tearing into his companion’s shoulder and throat before the struggling pair knocked into a parked car and set off the alarm and woke the whole street.

Floating face-down past the drop-off and staring down into the deep to commune with the ocean, Cera noticed an enormous sinuous form in the blackness the movements of which began to sway the tide into a growing violence. Fearful and seeking to escape, she made it back to shore and fled to the lap-pool at school, diving in and attempting to let physical exercise drive out the memory of the crushing weight of the awareness that had fixed upon her.  

Now struggling for their life Mika attempted to break free from Kafka but only ended up bearing the two of them to the ground, Kafka ready to tear and rip at their flesh. The Dark Power offered them protection at the price of an innocent abandoned in the woods and extended that offer to restraining Kafka until he recovered as long as the innocent was Lauren, and Mika agreed. The Dark Power, previously in the form of a raven, vanished and Adam appeared out of nowhere and tackled Kafka off of Mika, tying his hands behind his back and hustling him out of their in an iron grip before the waking residents of the street could intervene.

The session closed with a montage set to The Forest by the Cure:

• An unknown figure stepping towards the unconscious Sabrina, fungi and vines growing wherever its cloven feet touch, and stooping to take her necklace as a sympathetic token before departing.
• Mika heading back to their house, Lauren waking and bandaging their wounds before the two of them share an erotically-charged shower to wash off the blood.
• Adam in Kafka’s bedroom checking him for injuries, tenderness arising between them as Kafka admits the secret of his undeath and hunger.
• Cera swimming endless laps in the school pool as the moon slowly sets, fixing her eyes warily on the large drain at the bottom of the pool and the darkness beyond it.
• Adam and Kafka sleeping, spooning fully-clothed on Kafka’s bed until Adam soundlessly stands and departs through the open window.
• Sabrina waking out in the woods, realizing her necklace is missing and getting back in her car with fearful haste to drive away.
• Mika and a dull-eyed Lauren walking up the trail bare moments later, a raven watching with a satisfied gleam in its eye as Mika walks away.
• Floris in their bed, tossing and turning, their face increasingly distressed as they thrash at some unseen enemy or entrapment, dreaming of a tangle of leaves and vines from which gazes out a pair of great inhuman golden eyes.

Monsterhearts, Session 2

The Setting: Drawing, a large forested country town in New South Wales around an hour from the coast, at Saint Valentine’s Academy, a Catholic high-school.

Our Cast (this session):

• Brittany – an icy Queen with captivating eyes who leads a cultic clique who perform rituals they don’t understand at an old ritual site near the coast. (She pronouns) [Played by Kat]
• Kafka – a striking Ghoul with hollow eyes who was killed in a car-accident a month ago, bare days into the school year, but woke up afterwards confused and hungry. (He pronouns) [Played by Kaj]
• Sabrina – a brooding Witch with calculating eyes whose sanctuary from the stupidity of her classmates (an old and abandoned bathroom) is full of occult paraphernalia. (She pronouns) [Played by Jacqui]
• Mika – a distant Infernal with calculating eyes chosen to receive power and influence by an unknown patron who asks only the smallest things in return. (They pronouns) [Played by Liv]

What Happened:

The school bell rung. Kafka invited Lauren back to his house to hang out and talk about Frankenstein some more, but she turned him down because she had to be home by 4pm. Brittany refused an invitation to a sleepover from Tiffany, her second-in-command, and headed off home to her single father’s houseboat on a public bus after taking a roundabout route to ensure no-one would discover her poverty.

Mika headed out into the parking lot and had a conversation with Gail, a stoner often willing to sell weird natural hallucinogens he found in the woods and Lauren’s brother, and made a purchase. An interested Lauren considered going back to Mika’s place to safely do some experimenting with substances, but eventually decided it was too risky.

Sabrina pulled up beside Kafka and offered him a ride that quickly turned charged and uncomfortable as she confronted him about witnessing his crumpled body on the side of the road during the time between his death and resurrection. Brittany ran into Old Ernest on the beach and the elderly forager showed her and helped her capture a huge and strangely-iridescent crab that looked just like the rock-paintings at the ritual site her cult-clique discovered.

Mika arrived home to discover a massive build-up of bills and was offered assistance by the Dark Power in exchange for causing some heartbreak and suffering for it to feed on. A little later a knock on the door announced the arrival of Lauren, who had decided that she did want to try some psychedelics after all and ended up cuddled up to them and lazily making out due to a sudden craving for physical affection.

While looking Frankenstein up on Sparknotes so he could impress Lauren with his knowledge the next day, Kafka drifted into somewhat of a trance and snapped out of it with a premonition of what was going on at Mika’s house. Jealous of both his new sort-of-girlfriend and his ex-best-friend he raced over and, after a few failed attempts to hurl rocks at the house and break up what was going on, knocked on the door and interrupted proceedings. 

After a long and dangerously-charged moment in the doorway as Kafka’s hunger for flesh asserted itself, the interlocking strands of tension between Kafka, Lauren, and Mika resolved themselves into an unexpected sexual encounter.

On her father’s boat, Brittany stormed off into her ramshackle ‘cabin’ in the prow to escape yet another rant about grades and expectations, staring at the water and drifting off into a dream about a sinuous and abyssal blackness stirring in the deep.

Monsterhearts, Session 1

The Setting: Drawing, a large forested country town in New South Wales around an hour from the coast, at Saint Valentine’s Academy, a Catholic high-school. 

Our Cast (this session):

• Brittany – an icy Queen with captivating eyes who leads a cultic clique who perform rituals they don’t understand at an old ritual site near the coast. (She pronouns) [Played by Kat]
• Kafka – a striking Ghoul with hollow eyes who was killed in a car-accident a month ago, bare days into the school year, but woke up afterwards confused and hungry. (He pronouns) [Played by Kaj]
• Sabrina – a brooding Witch with calculating eyes whose sanctuary from the stupidity of her classmates (an old and abandoned bathroom) is full of occult paraphernalia. (She pronouns) [Played by Jacqui]

What Happened:

Homeroom. Sabrina clashed with a member of the Brittany’s clique named Jock who wouldn’t stop leering at her, while Brittany lost face when her command to him to stop was ignored. Kafka got in an argument with a goth called Adam over the deafeningly-loud volume of his headphones and realized that there was something off about his scent.

Kafka was approached by an indie girl called Lauren during English to help explain their assigned novel (Frankenstein) and the two of them struck up a rapport. Using her position as teacher’s pet Sabrina got out of her English class and snuck off to her abandoned bathroom, using a sweat-drenched towel she’d stolen days ago to cause Jock to break out in a rash.

The hex backfired and Jock ended up tearing at his own flesh until he bled and was restrained and taken to hospital  while Brittany, uncaring of her minion’s distress, attempted to feel out the best way to get the extremely wealthy Amber to join her clique.

On Kafka’s way through the cafeteria to eat lunch with Lauren he attracted Adam’s attention, but managed to ignore his insults and sneers until he started creeping on Lauren and physically intruding on her personal space. The confrontation erupted into violence when Sabrina, speaking in tongues, cast a botched hex that led Adam to out himself and admit his attraction to Kafka.

After Kafka brutally put an end to the fight by dislocating Adam’s arm (drawing an odd moan from Adam and a slightly flushed look from Lauren), he was sent to the Vice Principal’s office. Brittany followed along, intrigued and seeing potential uses for Kafka, and managed to convince Miss Williams to let Kafka off lightly.

Sabrina followed the sound of sobbing into a bathroom and found Raven, Lauren’s best friend, jealous and distraught. She managed to calm her down somewhat and an impulsive kiss led to a sordid tryst after which Sabrina left with another sympathetic token in the form of Raven’s underwear. 

Lauren and Kafka’s trip to the library on their free period to talk more about Frankenstein involved rather more straddling and making out than literary analysis, and Brittany made some definite headway into winning Amber over by blackmailing Dr Hill, the perverted Head of Science, into tampering with her grades.

Monsterhearts, Session 4

The Setting: Drawing, a large forested country town in New South Wales around an hour from the coast, at Saint Valentine’s Academy, a Catholic high-school.

Our Cast (this session):

• Kafka – a striking Ghoul with hollow eyes who was killed in a car-accident a month ago, bare days into the school year, but woke up afterwards confused and hungry. (He pronouns) [Played by Kaj]
• Sabrina – a brooding Witch with calculating eyes whose sanctuary from the stupidity of her classmates (an old and abandoned bathroom) is full of occult paraphernalia. (She pronouns) [Played by Jacqui]
• Mika – a distant Infernal with calculating eyes chosen to receive power and influence by an unknown patron who asks only the smallest things in return. (They pronouns) [Played by Liv]

What happened:

Sad and confused, Mika was left wandering through the empty streets and ruined industrial buildings on the western part of town as they begin to drift into a trance-like state. They felt the cold and damp of the night intensify as the sounds of a pack of hunting animals on their heels were accompanied by the appearance of a great dark golden-eyed hound in front of them.

As the hound let out a terrifying howl, echoed by the pack behind them, Mika snapped out of the vision and the fearful hunting hound was reduced to nothing but a mangy cur that slunk off into the shadows. Reaching an overgrown section of the industrial ruins nearer the south Mika had an emotional breakdown, sobbing and shivering, and turned to the Dark Power – in its raven-like shape – for comfort.

Half-waking to the realization that Adam had departed during his sleep Kafka was unable to get back to sleep and, prompted by his uncertainty as to whether his gravely-injured victim had survived, wandered over to Mika’s house to check in on them and Lauren. Finding the house empty and overcome with the realization of his brutal and monstrous actions, Kafka lay down on the floor and began to bitterly weep.

Driving home in a panic to escape whatever it was in the woods that had taken a sympathetic token from her, Sabrina arrived home and shut herself up in her room to do some desperate research. Spreading her occult books around her in a huge circle on the floor, she searched until her eyes were drooping and sleep was nearly upon her, but couldn’t find any hints as to what creature might leave the inhuman footprints she’d spotted when she woke up.

Staring at the tangled sheets and discarded clothing on Mika’s bed from his encounter with Mika and Lauren, Kafka’s concern over the absence of his almost-girlfriend sent a series of increasingly-dreadful scenarios through his mind that culminated with a too-real image of Lauren pale and bloody and pinned by a great iron spear to a treetrunk in the forest.

Falling into a deep and exhausted sleep, Sabrina dreamed. She found herself in a small clearing within a dark and tangled woodland, small dead animals spiked to the trees around her with iron nails and their blood pooling among the branches. From the shadows outside of the dim moonlight, within the trees, a dark and shadowy figure watched and then identified itself as the Hunter.

Speaking longingly of the days when born witches roamed its forest and kept fear and memory of its name alive, the Hunter offered to give Sabrina the power of a born witch and teach her ancient secrets if she would carry out its ancient rites and bring back the fear of the ‘mortal flock’ when they heard its name. Despite sensing that blood and cruelty lay down that road Sabrina’s desire for knowledge and power overcame her and she agreed, the Hunter mingling their blood to seal the pact before she woke in her room with her missing pendant back in her hand and leaves and dirt on her feet.

Dehydrated and with no more tears to shed, Mika let the Dark Power guide them back home with a side-stop so they could wash their face and clean up in a frontyard fountain. Arriving back at their home to find Kafka still curled up on the floor, Mika retrieved a knife from the kitchen and the two exchanged tense and guarded words as an increasingly suspicious Kafka demanded to know where Lauren had gone and an untrusting Mika tried to find out whether the real Kafka had in fact survived his death or if all that was left was a dead and hungry thing that wore Kafka’s face.

Unwilling to wait any longer, Kafka made to leave when Mika pinned him up against the doorframe with a knife against his throat to stop him. Leaning slightly into the blade to kiss Mika, Kafka manoeuvred them back into the centre of the room during a violent and angry series of further kisses before pulling back and walking away, leaving Mika confused and alone and turned on.

As Kafka left, Mika offered the Dark Power yet more influence over them if it showed them one of Kafka’s secrets and was given a direct impression of Kafka’s feelings for them and desire to regain some of their childhood closeness and intimacy. Still emotionally devastated from sacrificing Lauren to the Dark Power and Kafka trying to kill and eat them and confused from Kafka’s sudden abandonment of their kiss moments ago, Mika was overwhelmed by a sense of abandonment and helplessness to fulfil their wants and needs and became their Darkest Self.

Now willing to do anything to feel again, Mika smashed some plates and glasses before bed as the Dark Power suggested that maybe destroying something much larger – like a person – beyond repair would make them feel even better and then went to sleep. Outside Sabrina’s window, a great raven watched over her with unblinking golden eyes and delivered a scroll of cracked and ancient bark to the windowsill. And in the forest an increasingly fearful and desperate Kafka staggered through the trees shouting Lauren’s name until, exhausted, they tripped over a tree-root and fell at the foot of the ancient tree from their vision only to spot no sign of Lauren or anything stranger than the trees still-green leaves, unusually vivid and alone among the autumn reds and browns all around.